Panipitiya, Sri Lanka: One of Sri Lanka's top generals was assassinated yesterday by a suspected Tamil Tiger suicide bomber who rammed his motorbike into an army convoy near the capital, officials said.
Three other people were also killed.
Army deputy chief of staff Major-General Parami Kulatunga was travelling to army headquarters when the attacker approached his vehicle and an escorting army pickup truck in rush-hour traffic about 20km from Colombo.
The blast left the car a twisted wreck.
"The general is dead. Two others [soldiers] are also dead," police Chief Inspector Chaminda Bamunuarachchi told Reuters at the scene. A civilian was also killed. "I think it was a suicide attack against the general."
Ambushes
The attack comes on the heels of a rash of ambushes and military clashes that have killed around 700 people half of them civilians so far this year. Many fear the violence could wreck a 2002 truce and reignite a two-decade civil war.
The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), who have long used suicide bombers both in battle and assassinations, denied they were responsible for yesterday's blast.
"These killings are further examples of the LTTE's concerted efforts to derail the peace process through acts of terror, and its total disregard for the international community's repeated calls on it to cease all violence and acts of terrorism," President Mahinda Rajapakse said in a statement.
Blackened body fragments littered the highway and gardens of this Sri Lankan suburb after the bomb attack.
The burnt hulk of Major General Kulatunga's car lay askew near a ditch, its passenger side caved in completely evidence of the ferocious blast which killed the number three in the army and three others plus the attacker. Hundreds of people emerged from their homes, crowding behind a cordon. Police and soldiers armed with automatic weapons nervously scanned the roads or milled around the scene, pointing out twisted pieces of motor vehicles or drawing chalk circles around other debris.
At least six people were wounded in the attack, which shattered the relative quiet of the past few days and is likely to throw Sri Lanka's faltering ceasefire deeper into crisis.
Police special taskforce officers later said the bomber rode parallel to Kulatunga's convoy for more than a kilometre before ramming the general's car. Police said they found the bomber's head on a rooftop. Several other vehicles, including a minivan and a large bus, sat empty where they had been caught in the blast.
